Current language does not adequately describe many of the concepts needed by Earth Systems and Materials Scientists to describe relationships and phenomena on the planet as a whole an the paradigms needed to survive the future.

A definition that is generally accepted of ecology is that it is the study of how organisms interact with each other and their physical environment.

The concept of ecology was popularised and extended by Robert Frosch and Nicholas E. Gallopoulos [2] in 1989 to analyze production and consumption by industry, government, organizations and consumers, and the interactions between them. Their vision was "why would not our industrial system behave like an ecosystem, where the wastes of a species may be resource to another species? Why would not the outputs of an industry be the inputs of another, thus reducing use of raw materials, pollution, and saving on waste treatment?"

In this sense industrial ecologies involve tracking energy and material flows through industrial systems, e.g. a plant, region, or national or global economy. It follows that an industrial ecology is a localised or regional network of partnered organisations benefiting from an exchange of resources, information and/or expertise. Even if we colour this definition green as many others have done and say industrial ecologies involve actions taken to reduce the impact of industrial systems on the environment; in particular creating a closed industrial system, analogous to a natural ecosystem, where waste from one industry can be used as input for another, the definition does not anticipate an ecology of industries employing technical paradigms designed to economically substantially reverse damaging moleconomic flows outside the system.

The objective of the Global Sustainability Alliance is to develop Gaia Engineering technologies that work together in a tececology that substantially reverses damaging moleconomic flows going on mostly in the global commons. We owe it mainly to Lovelock (although he cites other earlier similar thinking) for the promotion of the idea of the connectivity in earth systems and our Gaia Engineering Tececologies reverse the flow of CO2 and waste redefining both as resources.

Tececologies are different to industrial ecologies because they are deliberately designed to economically reverse damaging moleconomic flows outside what were generally thought of as closed industrial systems. They go much beyond what the concept of an industrial ecology embraces and could be likened to ecological pumps. Industrial ecologies recycle but do not reverse flows outside what could be considered as a closed system with a flow greater than required for their own inputs.